As Matthew Tkachuk's body heals, the pain of defeat still hurts

We know what any normal citizen would do in this situation.

After holding down a steady job in one city for six years, you move to a different country and accept a new position. You flourish beyond your wildest dreams. You receive international media attention. You deliver career-best work for your new employer. You help your organization to its most successful year since 1996. And then…you break your sternum and four ribs in a workplace accident.

So you take it easy, right? Rest? Go on disability? Lay low for the summer?

Not Matthew Tkachuk. Not in the sense that we would, at least.

Catching up with Daily Faceoff before the NHL Awards in Nashville, the Florida Panthers superstar was only a couple weeks removed from the end of his 2022-23 season. The physical injuries he sustained on a devastating hit from the Vegas Golden Knights’ Keegan Kolesar during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final were nowhere close to healing. Nor were Tkachuk’s emotional scars from losing the series in five games, the last of which he had to endure as a spectator. He describes the feeling as “still so fresh, still so frustrating.”

He hadn’t even really taken the time to start healing inside and out when he was whisked off to Music City to attend the awards as a Hart Trophy finalist. In a span of 11 months, he’d been traded to the Panthers, delivered a career-best season in which he piled up 109 points, helped the Panthers upset the 65-win Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs, scored an interview in People magazine, appeared on a TNT NBA playoffs broadcast and much more. Toss in an injury so debilitatingly painful that his brother Brady had to help dress him just so he could play in Game 4 of the final, and you’d think Matthew would be ready to sleep for two months straight.

On one hand, he does acknowledge that his 2023 offseason won’t be normal and that he’ll “definitely be on the shelf for a while.” His estimated recovery was four to six weeks at the time of his injury, and since his Panthers played into June, the best-case scenario would have him starting some upper-body work by the end of July. He recognizes he needs to block off time for “chilling and relaxing,” as he puts it. He’s excited for a bit of recreational travel he’s planned. Being the competitor he is, however, he expects he’ll spend most of his summer focusing on healing and training once he’s medically cleared to do so. If all goes well, he’ll be ready for training camp.

He simply can’t wait to get back in action because, as exhausting as this past season was, it was incredibly rewarding for him, too. The Panthers sat outside the playoff picture for much of 2022-23 and squeaked in by one point, but there was no despair or lack of confidence in their dressing room, as Tkachuk put it. Yes, his father, retired NHL star Keith Tkachuk, earned a lot of credit for supposedly sparking a late-season surge after he publicly called the team soft, but “that was more you guys just making a big deal about it,” Matthew said. The Panthers weren’t fragile. They had a lot of self belief for a team on the bubble. And even though coach Paul Maurice indicated the Panthers would “have a hell of a time making the playoffs next year” as Tkachuk and defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour recover from injuries, it doesn’t scare Tkachuk.

“The best part about us is not really thinking too far ahead with anything,” he said. “We just kind of enjoy it, come to each game and try to win it. We never had an expectation all year about what we were going to do. We just came in and tried to win each game, and it got us to the Stanley Cup Final. So we’re gonna try to do the same next year.”

It’ll be easier said than done. Ekblad and Montour both required offseason shoulder surgeries and Ekblad is expected to miss the start of training camp at least. Rugged blueliner Radko Gudas departed in free agency. And the Panthers traded top-six forward Anthony Duclair. 

The Panthers did add some stopgaps to the left side of their D-corps in Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niko Mikkola, Dmitry Kulikov and Mike Reilly, but they look worse on paper heading into 2023-24. Meanwhile, the three teams who nipped at Florida’s heels in the Atlantic this past season, the Buffalo Sabres, Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings, have all been busy tinkering with their rosters this summer.

Not that Tkachuk is the type to worry. He feels the Panthers “know what it takes now” to go all the way, and if they survived a poor start this past season, they can do it again. It’s a fitting mentality for a player whose brand is built on being unflappable. He had four game-winning goals, including three in overtime, during the 2023 postseason, after all. He specializes in getting under opponents’ skin. And even as his life changes with more media exposure as the sport’s premier power forward, he remains himself.

“I kind of just roll with it,” he said of the change in U.S. media exposure. “It’s been a great year on and off the ice for myself. Super happy with the change and everything that came with it. But hopefully we can (be) better next year and keep having fun down in Florida, because it’s really unbelievable playing there.”

Tkachuk is still just 25. He’s arguably the franchise’s best forward since Pavel Bure. There might be more unbelievable things to come in South Florida going forward.